Whenever one has written for this space about Pakistan's time of troubles that began with the unlawful sacking of the chief justice of the Supreme Court in March this year, one's prognostication for the future was grounded in the judgement that President Musharraf would not countenance giving up power or even accept its significant dilution.
In his eight years of absolute rule, he has not been able to construct a polity in which he could rely on popular assent rather than the power flowing out of his continuation as the chief of army staff. This psychological compulsion has now plunged the country into a crisis from which it may be difficult to escape unscathed.
Musharraf had all the time in which he could remove the grave constitutional anomaly of combining the august office of the president of the republic with that of the army chief.
There was a good chance that by doing so he would ensure another term of the presidential office for himself in a vastly less controversial environment. But his recent decisions have been driven by a fear of a loss of power, a loss that he should have accepted as a necessary condition of the restoration of democracy.
In March, the chief justice was removed because of the government's perception that he was too independent a judge to legitimise its plans to get Musharraf elected for another term while retaining the army command.
Now on November 3, Musharraf cast aside all constitutional restraints and virtually re-imposed Martial Law on the country to pre-empt an impending Supreme Court decision on petitions challenging his recent re-election by a severely curtailed electoral college while still continuing as the army chief.
There were systematic leaks from within the regime that a negative verdict by the Supreme Court would be countered by a declaration of national emergency. In actual practice Musharraf did not wait for the verdict and took a series of decisions that went further than what the darkest of the rumours predicted.
Acting as the chief of army staff, and not as the president, he proclaimed that the constitution would be held in abeyance and the country would be governed through a provisional constitutional order that he is empowered to amend as required.
Since his principal target was the higher judiciary, he ordered the judges to take a fresh oath of office under this provisional constitution.
Inevitably a large number of judges have refused to do so. This has led to a reconstitution of courts and a great upheaval in the legal world of Pakistan.
Since the regime was fearful that independent media would mobilise public opinion against what is undeniably an extra constitutional exercise of power by the army chief, it shut down all privately owned TV news channels and issued a draconian set of rules to be observed by the print and electronic media.
Resistance underestimated
Despite the undisputed pre-eminence of the armed forces in Pakistani politics, Musharraf may find it extremely difficult to sustain the present unprecedented version of emergency as defined in the constitution. He has once again under-estimated the domestic resistance to it.
The perception that the regime wants to cripple the judiciary and the media before returning to any democratic events such as holding of elections will fuel agitation against him and may crystallise into a new demand that he would have to step down to enable the people to have a fair and free election.
Nobody in Pakistan's troubled history has succeeded in muzzling the media for any length of time. It is more alienated than ever before.
No less significantly, the international community for once seems to share the internal sense of outrage. The universal disapproval of developments in Pakistan comes not just from abstract principles but also from a solemn understanding between Musharraf and the principal global powers on how Pakistan would participate more effectively in the so-called war on terror.
These powers got intensely engaged with Pakistan's domestic politics because of their assessment that the void created by the suppression of democracy for eight long years was being increasingly filled by religious extremists.
At the heart of their plan for reversing this trend was a coalition between Musharraf needed for the war in Afghanistan and Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Peoples' Party, who could summon her personal charisma and the organisational power of her party to invest a new coalition with legitimacy and popular support.
If the Pakistani street remains on the boil for a few more weeks, Musharraf may well be seen by these powers as part of the problem, not its solution.
He still retains the option to concede that the regime's latest gamble has backfired and that he would revoke the emergency, restore fundamental rights and hold a fair and free election this winter.
Tanvir Ahmad Khan was with the Islamabad-based Institute of Strategic Studies and is a former Pakistan Foreign Secretary.
